See Jane Evolve: Picture Books Explain Darwin

ENLARGE

Peter Oumanski

April 18, 2014 6:50 p.m. ET

Evolution by natural selection is one of the best ideas in all of science. It predicts and explains an incredibly wide range of biological facts. But only 60% of Americans believe evolution is true. This may partly be due to religious ideology, of course, but studies show that many secular people who say they believe in evolution still don't really understand it. Why is natural selection so hard to understand and accept? What can we do to make it easier?

A new study in Psychological Science by Deborah Kelemen of Boston University and colleagues helps to explain why evolution is hard to grasp. It also suggests that we should teach children the theory of natural selection while they are still in kindergarten instead of waiting, as we do now, until they are teenagers.

Scientific ideas always challenge our common sense. But some ideas, such as the heliocentric solar system, require only small tweaks to our everyday knowledge. We can easily understand what it would mean for the Earth to go around the sun, even though it looks as if the sun is going around the Earth. Other ideas, such as relativity or quantum mechanics, are so wildly counterintuitive that we shrug our shoulders, accept that only the mathematicians will really get it and fall back on vague metaphors.

But evolution by natural selection occupies a not-so-sweet spot between the intuitive and the counterintuitive. The trouble is that it's almost, but not really, like intentional design, and that's confusing. Adaptation through natural selection, like intentional design, makes things work better. But the mechanism that leads to that result is very different.

Intentional design is an excellent everyday theory of human artifacts. If you wanted to explain most of the complicated objects in my living room, you would say that somebody intentionally designed them to provide light or warmth or a place to put your drink—and you'd be right. Even babies understand that human actions are "teleological"—designed to accomplish particular goals. In earlier work, Dr. Kelemen showed that preschoolers begin to apply this kind of design thinking more generally, an attitude she calls "promiscuous teleology."

By elementary-school age, children start to invoke an ultimate God-like designer to explain the complexity of the world around them—even children brought up as atheists. Kids aged 6 to 10 have developed their own coherent "folk biological" theories. They explain biological facts in terms of intention and design, such as the idea that giraffes develop long necks because they are trying to reach the high leaves.

Dr. Kelemen and her colleagues thought that they might be able to get young children to understand the mechanism of natural selection before the alternative intentional-design theory had become too entrenched. They gave 5- to 8-year-olds 10-page picture books that illustrated an example of natural selection. The "pilosas," for example, are fictional mammals who eat insects. Some of them had thick trunks, and some had thin ones. A sudden change in the climate drove the insects into narrow underground tunnels. The thin-trunked pilosas could still eat the insects, but the ones with thick trunks died. So the next generation all had thin trunks.

Before the children heard the story, the experimenters asked them to explain why a different group of fictional animals had a particular trait. Most of the children gave explanations based on intentional design. But after the children heard the story, they answered similar questions very differently: They had genuinely begun to understand evolution by natural selection. That understanding persisted when the experimenters went back three months later.

One picture book, of course, won't solve all the problems of science education. But these results do suggest that simple story books like these could be powerful intellectual tools. The secret may be to reach children with the right theory before the wrong one is too firmly in place.

Clearly darwinian evolution is so logical it needs to be presented to five year olds using picture books of fictitious creatures and fictitious events to overcome the bizarre tendency to see design in things of tremendous, uh, design. Evolution advocated constantly use fictitious creatures in evolutionary transition, etc. to support their case. To believe in evolution takes faith and its high priest are hell bent on proselytize the young and innocent before their mental capacities are fully matured.

Natural selection and evolution are two different things! Natural selection is just part of how evolution is supposed to work. The problem people have with it isn't simply "religious ideology," although that does help one to be skeptical. As Bob Wahler indicated, even creationists generally believe in some "evolution." The problem also isn't from being in a psychological sour point between easily believable and so strange it just has to be accepted. The trouble is that it requires jumping from easily-observed facts to a very different conclusion. It is easy to observe that nature weeds out variants that don't fit their conditions very well. It takes a lot of faith (or dogmatic belief in absolute naturalism) to conclude that somehow more complex and still better-at-surviving-AND-reproducing variants keep cropping up. BTW, read Darwin's _Origin_ -- he posits that giraffes got long necks because generations of them kept stretching up to reach leaves, and cows got bigger udders simply because they were used for milking for so many generations. We don't believe that now, but nobody has shown that any other natural process can produce the entirely new structures and systems required to produce all forms of life from single-celled organisms. Mutation can sometimes be beneficial, but even in those cases, there's no increase in organized, dynamic complexity.

The books are fairy tales, but dangerous.Evolution is more impossible than the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, and the Headless Horseman. See http://www.lifescienceprize.org/ for a list of bluffing evolutionists.

It is sad to see the Journal peddle this claptrap. Brainwashing kids with Darwinian dogma is nothing to be commended. It teaches kids that they are soulless material bags of chemicals. They instinctively reject this and correctly see themselves as designed by a Creator. That is a healthy self image. The Darwinists promote the primate self image, unaware that they discredit themselves by doing so. Why would anyone trust the conclusions of mechanistically produced brain? That brain has no basis for supposing it perceives reality. It is only a survivor in a competition for food. Its perceptions are survival-based, not reality based.Ality-based.

This woman is one of those Thomas Sowell warns of of in 'The Vision of the Annointed'. One who thinks she is smarter than you and knows how to run your life better than you. She alone has the 'right theory' and anybody who disagrees only does so for idealogical reasons. Ms Gopnik, of course is not idealogicaI. I'm sure she and her Berkeley buddies have lots of other 'right theories' to teach your young children before their minds get corrupted by what is not idealogically approved. Isn't this what they do in totalitarian countries? Just a thought..........

"Scientific ideas always challenge our common sense." Well now that's really convenient isn't it, convenient for an adherent of scientism for sure. There not only is a sure a way to categorize an idea as "scientific" but once so categorized, it will always challenge your common sense. How cute, a just-so story in spades. I am laughing at the absurdity of this whole indoctrination project. Helped out by an advanced degree in electrical engineering. Supposedly the kids need to be subjected to intervention so they will not be thinking like us Darwin skeptics and become the "scientifically illiterate".

I would like the writer of this piece to explain to us skeptics the advent of the mammalian tracheal and bronchial cilia. Please explain how this system became wired together, with scores of billions of cilia waving in concert to move phlegm and debris out of the lungs. Did it start out with a handful and grow into billions? Did the handful get the job done to some extent, and then a random new cilium came into being and conferred selective advantage on some long ago individual? And then this happened billions and billions of more times? And the wiring for the wave-like motions for these scores of billions of parts just happened to randomly fall into place? Please give a just-so story that would pass muster with the wealthy nineteenth century sage who was not a scientist by training. And that would pass muster with the modern indoctrinators.

I am all about teaching science to children who are ages where they can rationally disagree or argue alternative positions. But we totally squeeze out the creativity in kids when we try to indoctrinate them at a young age, especially regarding something that is still an unproven theory. It's crazy.

NATURAL SELECTION DOESN'T PRODUCE EVOLUTION. Natural selection can only "select" from biological variations that are possible and which have survival value. The real issue is what biological variations are possible, not natural selection.

Natural selection is just a figure of speech. It’s another term for survival of the fittest. If a variation occurs (such as change in skin color) that helps a species survive then that survival is called being “selected." Of course, nature doesn’t do any conscious selecting. It's a passive process.

Genes produce biological traits, not natural selection. If the genes don’t exist first for a trait then natural selection cannot select that trait.

Many lay people think that natural selection alone is enough for evolution. That is not true.

Modern theory of evolution teaches that random mutations in the genetic code caused by the environment will produce entirely new genes for natural selection to use or “select.” That’s nothing but blind faith. It's much like believing that randomly changing the sequence of letters in a romance novel, over millions of years, will turn it into a book on astronomy! That's the kind of blind faith macro-evolutionists have.

Only variations of already existing genes for already existing traits are possible (i.e. varieties of dogs, cats. horses, cows, etc). Nature is mindless and cannot design or genetically engineer entirely new genes for entirely new traits so that a sea sponge can evolve into a human being over millions of years. Even if such a thing could happen, how would the life form be able to survive or be fit for survival while incomplete and evolving?

Genetic information, like other forms of information, cannot arise by chance, so it is far more logical to believe that the genetic and biological similarities between species are due to a common Designer (Creator) who designed similar functions for similar purposes in all the various forms of life.

Author of popular Internet article, TRADITIONAL DOCTRINE OF HELL EVOLVED FROM GREEK ROOTS

*I have given successful lectures (with question and answer period afterwards) defending creation before evolutionist science faculty and students at various colleges and universities. I've been privileged to be recognized in the 24th edition of Marquis "Who's Who in The East" for my writings on religion and science.

NATURAL LIMITS TO EVOLUTION: Only micro-evolution, or evolution within biological "kinds," is genetically possible (such as the varieties of dogs, cats, horses, cows, etc.), but not macro-evolution, or evolution across biological "kinds," (such as from sea sponge to human). All real evolution in nature is simply the expression, over time, of already existing genes or variations of already existing genes. For example, we have breeds of dogs today that we didn’t have a few hundred years ago. The genes for these breeds had always existed in the dog population but never had opportunity before to be expressed. Only limited evolution or adaptation, variations of already existing genes and traits, is possible.

The genes (chemical instructions or code) must first exist or otherwise the evolution cannot occur. Genes instruct the body to build our tissues and organs. Nature is mindless and has no ability to design and program entirely new genes for entirely new traits. Nature can only work with the genetic ability already existing in species. Nature cannot perform the genetic engineering necessary to increase that genetic ability.

Many people have wrong ideas of how evolution is supposed to work. Physical traits and characteristics are determined and passed on by genes - not by what happens to our body parts. For example, if a woman were to lose her finger this wouldn't affect how many fingers her baby will have. Changing the color and texture of your hair will not affect the color and texture of your children's hair. So, even if an ape's muscles and bones changed so that it could walk upright it still would not be able to pass on this trait to its offspring. Only changes or mutations that occur in the genetic code of reproductive cells (i.e. sperm and egg) can be passed on to offspring.

Modern evolutionists believe and hope that over, supposedly, millions of years, random genetic mutations in the genes of reproductive cells caused by environmental radiation will generate entirely new genes. This is total blind and irrational faith on the part of evolutionists. It's much like believing that randomly changing the sequence of letters in a romance novel, over millions of years, will turn it into a book on astronomy! That's the kind of blind faith macro-evolutionists have.

When evolutionary scientists teach that random genetic mutations in species over, supposedly, millions of years caused by random environmental agents such as radiation, produced entirely new genes (i.e. genetic code or genetic information) leading to entirely new forms of life, they are not teaching science but simply a faith, a belief!

What about natural selection? Natural selection doesn't produce biological traits or variations. It can only "select" from biological variations that are possible and which have survival value. The term "natural selection" is a figure of speech. Nature doesn't do any conscious selecting. If a variation occurs in a species (i.e. change in skin color) that helps the species survive then that survival is called being “selected." That's all it is. Natural selection is a passive process in nature, not a creative process.

How could species have survived if their vital tissues, organs, reproductive systems, etc. were still evolving? A partially evolved trait or organ that is not complete and fully functioning from the start would be a liability to a species, not a survival asset. Plants and animals in the process of macro-evolution would be unfit for survival. For example, “if a leg of a reptile were to evolve (over supposedly millions of years) into a wing of a bird, it would become a bad leg long before it became a good wing” (Dr. Walt Brown, scientist and creationist). Survival of the fittest actually would have prevented evolution across biological kinds! Read my Internet article: WAR AMONG EVOLUTIONISTS! (2nd Edition).

All species of plants and animals in the fossil record are found complete, fully-formed, and fully functional. This ...

There are not many comments here. But I can't help but wonder if this sampling of the Republican population is really accurate. This is truly alarming. This is America - a modern nation. Why would so many people reject science? Again, we're not talking about remote jungle villages here. We're talking about Americans who live in modern cities.

My exposure to the ideas of evolutionary biology has been through the field of computing. Ultimately, these ideas will lead humans to be able to replicate human intelligence. They are that powerful. It's not a question of "if" anymore, but merely a question of time.

The final sentence: "The secret may be to reach children with the right theory before the wrong one is too firmly in place." ..... "the right theory"???...If it is a theory how can it be labeled "right"?What you mean is children should be taught to see thing the way you accept as correct? Today's media seems to be full of that idea.

As for this article, as a parent, I think the best way to help young children understand nature and how it works is showing it first hand. Forget the picture books, let them plant seeds in Dixie cups and watch them grow. Have pets. Go for long explores in the woods.Science begins with observation. Let them learn by seeing for themselves nature at work. If they are to ever think for themselves and reason for themselves, they must learn to see.

How would natural selection work on non-living matter to create the first cell? There can be no "survival" of better "adapted" non-living material. There is no way to get a living cell from non-living matter through natural selection and adaptation.

America is the only economically developed country where you have a trailer trash segment of the population advocating for belief in fairy tales over science. Everywhere else evolution isn't even debated.

Thank goodness we don't have trailer trash running the country - if our leaders and top scientists and businessmen relied on fairy tales for decision making we'd be in real trouble.

The article equates evolution and natural selection. A straw man argument defining natural selection as evolution is built and only clouds the understanding of science and origins for children. It is better to describe science as observational and historical.most science is done when we observe and test things with our senses in the present and make conclusions. As a physician I practice evidence based medicine which would fit under observational science.Historical science looks at observable events in the present such as radioactive decay rates and then makes assumptions about radioactive decay rates and other conditions that may have been present many years in the past but we're not there to measure or observe. Explaining these vital differences is very important and makes children and adults better scientists. Recently in the field of cholesterol management and heart disease we had thought that no matter how we lower someone's cholesterol they will have fewer heart attacks. We were disappointed to find through observational science that adding a niacin to a statin had no added benefit. We also assumed that putting a stent in a patient with stable heart disease would make them have fewer heart events and live longer(both patients on optimal medical therapy). They didn't live longer. It is very important that we explain the assumptions that are being made. In origins science these assumptions are not discussed. Failure to do this makes children worse scientists.

All someone has to do is prove conclusively that something like a mouse, in the process of becoming a bat, sprouted fully functioning wings and developed a complex sonar system so sensitive that it can detect a mosquito and I'll take a second look at macro-evolution. Until then, it is much more plausible that all life was designed directly and immediately by a Genius of incredible intellect. Functioning complexity has never been shown to come out of chaos without serious intellectual input, design plans, and a directed work effort. A living animal can no sooner put itself together than an F-16 can emerge by itself out of a automobile junk yard. Teaching little children that their ancestry derived by chance from a chemical soup in some ancient warm shallow sea is child abuse. Why? Because that's what lying to little children is, child abuse.

So the lesson here is what? Get to the kids at a young enough age and we can indoctrinate them with cartoons? If only some businesses had thought of this. Let me point out just one thing in the fictional example. There were two kinds of tusks, later there was only one kind. That is a reduction of genetic information. This is not an increase in complexity of organisms, it is a decrease. Think on that a minute. It isn't evolution. It is change. But a reduction, a simplification.

The statement "Evolution by natural selection is one of the best ideas in all of science" is clearly not true

- What invenction have resulted from people believing in Molecules to man evolution?

-Dr Ben Carson; Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at one of the world's greatest hospitals (Johns Hopkins), a groundbreaking surgeon, best-selling author, and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom said"

"I think one of the most damning pieces of evidence against evolution is the human genome.

You can see that you have very complex, sophisticated coding mechanisms for different amino acids, and various sequences that give you millions of different genetic instructions -- very much like computer programming, which uses a series of zeros and ones in different sequences, but gives you very specific information about what that computer is to do."

2) MANY PEOPLE REJECT DARWINIAN/MACRO EVOLUTION ON SCIENTIFIC GROUNDS

- The assertion that people reject evolution for "religious" reasons is a deceptive ploy to hide the fact that the scientific evidence supporting it is completely circumstantial and open to interpretation

- The fossils evolutionist point to do NOT demonstrate anything in particular. They can be INTERPRETED to fit the evolutionary model or they can be interpreted to fid the Intelligent Design model. The fossils do not speak.

3) EVOLUTION IS NOT HARD TO GRASP - IT IS HARD TO BELIEVE

- The key assertion of molecules to man evolution is that from a chaotic simple begining, the prevailing world emerged but the application of purely natural forces over "billions of years"

- This is not hard to understand - IT IS HARD TO BELIEVE

- it has NOT bee observed

- it violates our observ ation of the natural world

- it requires a design without a designer, a building without a builder

- it does not make sense

Dr John Sanford (Geneticist and inventor of the GeneGun) said :

“The bottom line is that the primary axiom [of Darwinian/Macro evolution] is categorically false,

you can't create information with misspellings, not even if you use natural selection.”

Alison's bait and switch is disturbing. She uses the fact of evolution to support her belief that life and its features originated naturalistically. Evolution and creation are not mutually exclusive ideas. I support teaching the fact of evolution, but don't use it to discredit the hypothesis of design.

Darwin was a polemicist and his rhetoric and metaphysics continue to pollute serious discussion about the origin and evolution of life. The survey's in question do not present a working definition of evolution, so the answers are generally based on the popular definition of evolution rather than the scientifically accepted one.

The popular definition of evolution is that life originated on its own in a warm pond (hence the fascination with the search for water on other planets) and then evolution took over from there.

But, this is not the scientific definition it is the polemical one that Darwinists like to use. Yes, life evolves, but the kind of evolution that is supported by empirical science, where nature selects from a pool of existing traits is hardly controversial. There is observable natural variation in all populations and the distribution of traits such as large or narrow trunks will change over time. This is the fact of evolution and very few people will argue with it.

Darwin and his followers don't have an explanation for where the trunk came from in the first place, nor can the theory predict what will happen in the future. Instead, its predictive powers are based on backwards looking analysis that attempts to explain why giraffes have long necks or why people have such large brains. Hindsight is 20-20 and Darwinian explanations of how things got to where they are are just conjecture and cannot be subject to rigorous analysis.

One man's "ideology" is another man's "principle". The dogma you echo fails to account for a perhaps simple explanation: that many of the 40% do in fact easily grasp the very simple concept of natural selection, but reject the overall dogma as unpersuasive and incomplete.It is a well trodden path to blame non-acceptance of your dogma as "mis-understanding" or in need of "education". "They just don't understand..." No, they understand and are exercising their right to reject your dogma.

For some people, looking around at seemingly flawed designs and maladaptive seeming behavior may conflict with evolution's assertion that these are precisely the designs and adaptations that outcompeted all the others.

As a matter of fact, the Gopnik "giraffe" example has nothing to do with either "intentional" or "intelligent" design, but is from the Lamarckian concept of the inheritance of acquired characteristics -- which concept suited Stalin's totalitarian planners, and was therefore the only acceptable "scientific truth" in the USSR.

I'm pretty sure I learned about Luther Burbank's work before I was 8, and didn't need a fictitious "pilosa" to help me understand the idea of natural selection -- but simple logic dictates that, as Chesterton argued, no number of explanations about how something came from something else will get us closer to how something came from nothing.

Multiple politicians have tried telling us that Global Warming is a fact. They are intent on us believing them. This author seems intent on convincing everyone as well. What's the big deal if some people don't believe it?? And why do we want to close children's minds to things at young ages?

I am glad not everyone bought into the theory that the earth was flat.

Yours is an ad hominem argument. In any case, they may be religious fundamentalists, and they may live in double-wides, but they have a right to their beliefs.Furthermore, natural selection as the mechanism of evolution should be debated and tested. That is what science is about.

- Vaccines, antibiotics, every FDA-approved pharmaceutical. Why do we do all of our testing on mice or chimpanzees rather than geckos or beetles? Because our genomes are far more similar - a consequence of evolution. As mutations accumulate in the genome, our relatedness diverges more and more.

2) Tisk, tisk. You’re allowing Dr. Caron’s credentials to speak for the science rather than the science speaking for itself. Thankfully, there are no scientific authorities so one man’s opinion doesn’t prove or disprove any one hypothesis/theory. Another fallacy of this is that you're essentially saying that you trust the opinion of a very tiny minority of doctors and scientists who identify as Christian and are clearly biased over the opinion of hundreds of thousands or millions of scientists around the world who are even more qualified than him - and likely far less biased as well.

3) The genetic code is essentially the smoking gun of evolution by natural selection – not the “damning piece of evidence” Dr. Carson would have you believe.

- For instance, there are approximately 1.5 x 10^84 possible combinations of triplet codons to amino acids yet the genetic code is strikingly uniform throughout the whole of the animal kingdom. Clearly, if each organism was created independent of any others, then there would be more than enough combinations available that each amino acid combination in each organism’s genetic code could be entirely unique to that organism.

- Genetics, fossils, and comparative anatomy all reveal the same truth – that organisms which are more related share more traits and those which are not as related will share less traits.

4) Fossils may not speak in the literal sense but they do tell us a great deal about our biological history. This includes but is certainly not limited to the following:

- We find no modern phyla above the KT boundary. All dinosaurs are found below and all modern mammals are found above. - Evolution predicts the presence of intermediate fossils and we have found countless examples.

5) No one rejects evolution based on science. If there was scientific evidence against it, it wouldn’t be the gold standard of biology that it is. It has withstood two centuries of religious and scientific scrutiny.

6) Evolution wouldn’t be hard to believe if you ACTUALLY took the time to understand it. It’s clear your religious bias is more important to you than what’s true. There have been at least a few dozen examples of speciation that we have actually observed. Ring species are a great example of this. If you’re at all interested, look up Ensantina escholtzii, a salamander in California. Evolution of ring species are able to be observed as they migrate and their population splits and becomes geographically isolated by rivers, mountains, etc. As time passes, random mutation, natural selection, and genetic variation all play a part in taking one species and making it two. Dogs are another great example with the vast majority descending from the Grey Wolf.

Darwin is the most over-rated pseudo-scientist in history. Animal and plant breeding has been done since pre-history. Not only were Darwin's "ideas" not original they are not even that clever. He was a big proponent of Lamarkism by the way.

The assertion that everyone whod does not agree with molecules to man evolution needs to be "educated" is clearly proposterous and Orwellian. They don't seem able to accept the idea that people can reject evolution on SCIENTIFIC grounds because the evidence supporting it is so weak.

Consider a quotation from New Scientist magazine in an article “Survival of the fittest theory: Darwinism's limits” 03 February 2010

“Much of the vast neo-Darwinian literature is distressingly uncritical.

The possibility that anything is seriously amiss with Darwin's account of evolution is hardly considered.

Such dissent as there is often relies on theistic premises which Darwinists rightly say have no place in the evaluation of scientific theories. So onlookers are left with the impression that there is little or nothing about Darwin's theory to which a scientific naturalist could reasonably object.

The methodological scepticism that characterises most areas of scientific discourse seems strikingly absent when Darwinism is the topic.”

Anecdotes from a handful of Christian scientists doesn't constitute as evidence in the scientific world. Every single one of your replies is littered with "Well, this guy I read about once has a PhD and said that evolution is a lie." Yes, and for every one of him there are thousands more that acknowledge evolution is occurring despite their preconceived notions that were hammered into them by their religion.

As I said before, no one rejects based on science. If there was scientific evidence disproving it, it wouldn't be a theory. Evolution by natural selection has made a litany of very accurate predictions that have all held up to rival theories over the past two centuries. I think you forget that even Darwin struggled to reconcile his observations with his faith. Your comment earlier about Darwin's issues with the lack of intermediate species in the fossil record is true but that's because at his time the fossil record was very poor. However, after two centuries of research and ruling out competing theories via independent studies looking at the genetics, comparative anatomy, stratigraphy, and radiometric dating which all tell the same story, we now have an almost countless number of examples of how the environment and competition for sex and resources has shaped biological life.

Even in identical twins you can see clear evidence of how our genomes are constantly being acetylated or methylated in response to our environment, resulting in identical twins from birth having a very different genetic composition later in life.

@Anna: I am a practicing, believing Catholic, and I am a science/math teacher. When I taught biology in a Catholic school, I taught about evolution. I still teach about evolution, and I also teach Catholic catechism. There is no conflict; the Catholic Church officially accepts the theory of evolution.

We are "indoctrinating" my young nephews with the Catholic religion by sending them to religious education classes. We also teach them about evolution.

I am sorry that you think that religion and science are mutually exclusive.

1) Vaccines and antibiotics have are NOT due a belief in Molecules to Man evolution.

In Ernst Chain’s (co founder of penicillin ) biography it states:

“Chain’s dismissal of Darwin’s theory of evolution” and that “evolution was not really part of science, since it was, for the most part, not amenable to experimentation – and he was and is, by no means alone in this view”.

As an understanding of the development of life, Chain said, “a very feeble attempt it is, based on such flimsy assumptions, mainly of morphological-anatomical nature that it can hardly be called a theory.”

And speaking of certain evolutionary examples, he exclaimed, “I would rather believe in fairies than in such wild speculation”

2) FOSSILS ARE A PROBLEM FOR EVOLUTION

- Darwin specifically mentions the problem of missing transitional forms in his famous book.

Even evolutionist David M Raup recognizes the problem of fossils for evolution; he said:

"A large number of well trained scientists outside the evolutionary biology and palaeontology have unfortunately gotten the idea that the fossil record is far more Darwinian than it is.

This probably comes from the oversimplification inevitable in secondary sources: low level textbooks, semi popular articles, and so on.

Also there is probably some wishful thinking involved.

In the years after Darwin, his advocates hoped to find predictable progressions. In general, these have NOT been found yet the optimism died hard, and some pure fantasy has crept into textbooks"

Evolution and the Fossil Record

Science, Vol 213, No 4505, 17 July 1981, p 289

3) Your point number 5 ("No one rejects evolution based on science") is totally wrong.

There is significant dissent from Darwinism. For proof of the dissent to go http://www.dissentfromdarwin.org/ and download the list of brave scientists who are willing to publicly declare their dissent from Darwinian/Macro evolution. Micro Evolution is observable science, Darwinian/Macro evolution is a fairytale supported only by propaganda.

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